Mapping Balleny Islands…

After the Mertz stopover, ACE expedition reached the Balleny archipelago, a serie of uninhabited volcanic islands. Realizing that their is no good map of the Balleny Islands, David Walton proposed a new mission for ACE: Create a topographic map of the islands Young Buckle and Sabrina. Therefore, the media team and pilots conducted a systematic photographic survey of the Balleny Islands by helicopter, shooting stills and 4K video to cover entirely all three islands. Peter Ryan embarked in the second chopper to do a bird survey and identify penguin rookeries.

Brad Markle, an expert in paleoclimate and climate dynamics, and Noé Sardet, from the Parafilms/EPFL media team, referenced the photos on a rudimentary satellite map. Brad will continue the work using a specialized software that creates a 3D model of the islands from the photos and GPS coordinates, a technique called “Structure from motion”.